I treated Chrissy pretty poorly. This letter dated June 7, 1977, sent just a few days ahead of my graduation from Andover High School, makes that pretty clear.

She was a year younger, and I went out with her because I couldn’t go out with Mary H. or Mary G. or who knows who else. She was apparently star-struck by the leading men of classic American cinema, such as Clark Gable and Fred Astaire, and the only thing I could think was that she was attracted to me from my leading roles in the high school musicals. I had to look up the source of the poem on page 3, and sure enough, it is from a Barbra Streisand song.

I do remember having a lot of fun with Chrissy, and in retrospect, she was not a dummy. But so arrogant and cocky was I in our relationship that that is exactly the nickname I gave her: “Dummy.” She would even occasionally refer to herself as “your dummy.”

I wish that I still could unburden myself of things I don’t particularly care to do with the simple reason that I don’t feel like it.